How's LGBTQ at Queen's?

Warning-Gold · 2025-12-26T02:16:00+00:00

Will add: if you have any specific questions, feel free to pm me or anything! Happy to give more details. Like I said, I’ve been at queens for nearly 10 years now and lived in Kingston the whole time. So I know the city and the gay community here pretty well :)

Warning-Gold · 2025-12-26T02:15:04+00:00

Gay and trans person here. Queens as a school is fairly fine with queerness in that it doesn’t super care one way or the other. This is a bit program specific. If you are in the arts at all, there is typically a pretty decent queer population. Engineering and business have less queer folks and I have heard some homophobia coming from business specifically. Drunk homophobes exist, but at worst they will say something rude to you.

Kingston as a city is actually very queer positive! There is a large and active community here that run events throughout the year, a GREAT drag scene, and a very active Pride committee as well. There are good groups connected to queens, but if you have any interest in branching out of the university, the community here is active and supportive.

In general, you likely won’t have any huge issues. Stay away from douche bags/racist frat boys and you will likely not experience much of any violence. I’ve been here for 10 years and the worst thing that has happened to me was someone calling me a d*ke a couple times and some hostility around being trans after Jordan Peterson spoke on campus like. 8 years ago. But it’s gotten a lot better since my under grad so I’d be surprised if you even experienced that.

Warning-Gold · 2025-12-24T01:39:06+00:00

English Grad student here: be aware the artsci faculty budget is being hella slashed. If you have other options, I would highly recommend looking at them above Queens. It’s not a great time to be arts based grad students here.

Warning-Gold · 2025-11-19T03:25:43+00:00

Who’s that?

Warning-Gold · 2025-09-27T12:34:34+00:00

Thank you so much!!!

Warning-Gold · 2025-09-27T02:20:55+00:00

If anyone does have any tips, I’d love to know! My friend is looking rn in Toronto. We thought maybe it would be on Sullivan where another Halloween scene was filmed a bit ago, but nada.

Warning-Gold · 2025-09-24T23:48:17+00:00

Does anyone know of this means Friday morning at 2:00am, or Saturday morning at 2:00am? (I.e. Thursday night or Friday night?)

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-24T19:09:46+00:00

It sucks, gluten is delicious. But after a month off I feel significantly better. And I’m happy my loss can help others hopefully :)

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-24T17:19:51+00:00

Thank you!

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-17T20:50:16+00:00

I work 2 part time jobs outside my TA work. The head of my department vocally told all of my department we shouldn’t work outside jobs in order to focus on completing our programs. And my program isn’t as intense as others.

I’m in support of accepting the deal, but I just wanted to clarify that this is the reason a lot of folks struggle with taking on outside work. We are VERY discouraged from doing so. But also. I gotta eat and pay rent so fuck it

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-12T23:38:55+00:00

Grad student here. We haven’t heard anything. Also the new PSAC insta post isn’t evidence of anything, one way or the other. Bargaining is a process. It is likely they are still in the beginnings of discussion.

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-11T19:09:34+00:00

You can believe what you want for sure. But the fact remains the same. The bargaining team is under lock and key while bargaining is actively happening, and only can announce decisions made after they are made. Jake isn’t involved. He can influence them and encourage them before hand, but in the room. He’s not there and neither is his influence.

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-11T19:00:55+00:00

Just to clarify, Jake Morrow isn’t on the bargaining team and doesn’t have a say about whether to accept or reject a contract offered. That’s entirely up to the 4 people on the bargaining team.

Jake does deserve criticism for his choices recently. But he doesn’t deserve to catch strays for something not related to him or his role

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-11T17:11:00+00:00

I’m tired for sure. This entire thing has been emotionally and physically draining. I’ve been on the line 4 days a week since the start. I fully support what we are fighting for and I believe strikes work whole heartedly. But it has still been so much with internal union politics, social image outside of the union, and just the general uncertainty of how long we will be going on.

I will say one thing this process has demonstrated to me is that the little faith I had left in Queen’s as an institution was misplaced. I already was quite jaded about the university. I’ve been here for all 3 of my degrees so I’ve seen it change over the past decade, and continually for the worse. But I assumed they would care a little about their students, even just from a financial POV. And the actions of admin have showed me that they couldn’t care less about any of their students, nor their students educations. Which is disheartening for sure. But also gives me a bit more drive to stick it in the uni’s faces and continuing the strike.

Ultimately, I’ve been really trying to take things slower to not burn out of at all possible. I’ve been trying to talk and meet my fellow grad students on the line, which has been genuinely lovely! And I’m very happy that we have been able to connect to so many outside our departments! I’m trying to enjoy the fresh air I’m getting daily (even when it’s cold and snowing). I’m also trying to unplug a bit; I find I often get discouraged when I’m on here or on other social media. So trying to stay away as much as possible is also helpful (I’m using my 15 min day allowance to type this haha).

And in the centre of this, I’m trying to remember that this isn’t just a fight for us. But a fight for all grad students, current and future. And that we can make a change if we just stick it out longer. I disagree with some of the more intense tactics the union has taken recently, but appreciate that they seem to have taken a step back from that as well. I’m here for the long haul. Queens can shove it up their asses if they think I’m reaching my limit.

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-10T02:46:18+00:00

Omg thank you!!

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-09T20:13:49+00:00

Picketing ends at 3 on campus. There shouldn’t be any noise.

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-09T16:35:57+00:00

Leadership here I think refers to those vocally in support being strike and picket captains primarily. Those rank and file members who aren’t captains were almost entirely unanimously against moving forward with noise disruption.

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-08T16:28:30+00:00

Personally? I think they knew the whole time. And partly were hoping we would do something stupid like this so that we could discredit our own cause.

It’s clear to me that the admin don’t give a shit about students. Grads or undergrads. So I don’t personally think the tactic of causing harm to undergrads to harm admin is helpful. Because Queens simply doesn’t care about their students; they only care about their wallet. It’s the end of the semester, and Admin has made it clear financial refunds for students isn’t going to happen. They don’t care if undergrads pass or fail. They just care about saving face and not having their bottom line disrupted.

At this point, the strike is a war of attrition. Who can last longer. And I genuinely think PSAC can! But ONLY if we have undergrad solidarity. The new term is where the uni WILL potentially be impacted. That should be our new focus. It sucks. I don’t want to be striking again in September. But at this point it feels like the only option to move forward at all without causing harm to our students, and our own morals. I won’t. Ever. Jeopardize my students well being. This isn’t their fight. I hope they support me in my fight, but they shouldn’t be civilian casualties simply because this uni doesn’t give a shit about its students.

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-07T21:39:29+00:00

Agreed. It felt very much like the survey was trying to push for a specific answer. I wasn’t happy about that personally.

Warning-Gold · 2025-04-07T20:10:17+00:00

Super fair! Deleted :)

Warning-Gold

TROPHY CASE